Bogue dredging to begin soon

Dredges will soon be in town to begin a beach nourishment project along Bogue Banks.

JANNETTE PIPPIN - Daily News Staff

BOGUE BANKS — Dredges will soon be in town to begin a beach nourishment project along Bogue Banks.

Carteret County Shore Protection Manager Greg “Rudi” Rudolph said a pre-construction meeting was held Tuesday, Jan. 15 for all of the resource agencies involved in the project to get ready for the start of work.

Rudolph said work is expected to begin by the end of this month or first part of February. The project has to be completed by March 31.

When work does begin, multiple dredges will be used to pump sand onto the beach.

“When we do start, we could potentially have three dredges here,” Rudolph said.

While details were still being finalized, he said it’s likely that the third dredge will help move the project forward.

“They could get things really cranked out and finish up with two,” he said.

The three stretches of beach strand were identified for the project following surveys after Hurricane Irene in 2011 that showed them as having the greatest need for sand.

The sand to be used for the project was dredged from the Morehead city harbor channel and placed three miles offshore by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Through a lease agreement between the federal government and Carteret County, the sand will be pumped back to shore.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced Friday that it has executed an agreement for the use of up to 1 million cubic yards of sand form the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf for the Carteret County project.

In addition to overseeing and regulating conventional and renewable energy resources on the Outer Continental Shelf, the agency manages non-energy resources from the ocean floor in the OCS, including sand, gravel and shell resources for coastal restoration.

The Carteret County project will pump sand onto one stretch of beach strand in Pine Knoll Shores and two in Emerald Isle.

The approximately $15 million project is being funded through a combination of federal, county and local funds.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to pay reimbursement funds of about $7 million and about $8 million will come from the two towns and the county through the Carteret County Beach Commission.

The beach commission agreed to fund $5.8 million while the Town of Emerald Isle is contributing about $1.4 million and Pine Knoll Shore about $512,000.

The contract was awarded to Great Lake Dredge and Dock.

Rudolph said that in separate news, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge, the McFarland, was scheduled to begin work Monday on dredging to help alleviate shoaling along the Morehead City Harbor shipping channel.